William Burroughs and Love

I am sharing again on Burroughs and love because my previous post could be interpreted as Burroughs only having love for his cats, and I don't believe that is true.

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Some think the words love and Burroughs should not be in the same sentence. 

I don't believe this to be true. I believe all of Burroughs' work is an act of love. Despite how many show love, Burroughs does not show love how we might expect.

One beautiful counterexample of this is Burroughs' relationship with his cats. The small book the Cat Inside is gushing with an open-hearted, vulnerable love. In my view, Burroughs wanted to love and be loved as most of us wish.

Anyone who has read Burroughs can't help but be touched by his effusive love for his cats. Burroughs would be brought to tears if one of his cats was missing.

Burroughs possessed great genius. It is fair to question his morality and self-destructive behaviors. Yet, in the bigger picture, which of us is in a place to pass judgment. 

Burroughs showed us the future to come long before others. Isn't this an act of love?

Burroughs is an enigma of the 20th century—a visionary who was deeply wounded yet openly shared this fact. Burroughs spent his life trying to exorcise the demons haunting him due to accidentally killing his wife Joan in Mexico. Both played a part in this tragedy. A man who did not love would not have spent much of his life in despair trying to make things right within himself.

Burroughs became a writer because of the accidental death of Joan.

I see Burroughs as the heart of the Beat movement. I think Ginsburg and the other Beats would have said the same. 

It took the chemistry and courage of all the Beats to blow up the conformity and American propaganda of the fifties. Burroughs, with Kerouac, Ginsburg, and others, created a new cultural space of freedom that previously did not exist. We all know this to be true.

The Beat movement cut through the normalization of post-world war two America. It is hard to imagine the sixties and the future resistance to "systems of control" without Burroughs, who unmasked many hidden truths. Is this not an act of love?

Burroughs has stood the test of time arguably better than the other Beats. Burroughs is possibly more relevant now than ever. Burroughs manages not to be trapped in any time period. I think now only a small group is aware of the importance of Burroughs in the 20th century and beyond.

What did Burroughs not explore in his life? 

What psychic landscape or state of consciousness did Burroughs fail to penetrate and report back on you us? 

Burroughs was like an alien anthropologist who had a distance and objectivity about the hidden dark aspects of being a human being which he then reported. The human species may be headed towards extinction, but if not, wasn't it necessary for someone like Burroughs to tell it like it is so there could be a chance of change? Is this not an act of love?

Was Burroughs wrong in seeing the darkness within himself and all human beings who seem to be on the fast track to killing themselves and all life on this planet? Is it not love to share painful truths?

I read all I could find of Burroughs and look forward to going to one location of his archives at the New York City public library to read and understand Burroughs on a deeper level.

The Cat Inside was one of the last Burroughs books I read. I was caught off guard. In print was Burroughs showing the love I felt was in his heart. Imagining Burroughs crying when a cat goes missing and putting up flyers all over Lawrence, Kansas, desperately searching for his cats shows a face of love that is easier to relate with than the love within his vast body of writing and experimentation.

Is art an act of love?

Burroughs loved guns, but I do not believe he loved killing or wished to kill. This is my understanding. Who cares if he loved guns? As Burroughs said, guns are in the American DNA and will never go away.

I have no guns or wish for guns, but I do not judge Burroughs or others over guns.

Burroughs was profoundly wounded and imperfect. Burroughs did not hide his failings. Burroughs hurt those he loved most in life, and he was filled with regret and despair for his actions.

Some hate Burroughs. No one could hate Burroughs more than himself when drunk throughout his life, breaking down over Joan's accidental death and his reckless actions.

In his way, Burroughs knew love at heart was most important for the future of the human species.

As Burroughs approaches the end of life, you can see in his journals how he felt about love.

"At 83 just emerging from a stormy adolescence, costly to myself and those around me. Of course, no more nonsense “love” at my old age."

"Sounds sappy, but love is a very definite force, like electricity."

"These are the last words of William Burroughs— written the day he died

"Thinking is not enough.

Nothing is.

There is no final enough of wisdom, experience — any fucking thing.

No Holy Grail, no Final Satori, no final solution.

Just conflict.

Only thing can resolve conflict is love, like I felt for Fletch and Ruski, Spooner and Calico.

Pure love.

What I feel for my cats present and past.

Love?

What is It?

The Most natural painkiller that there is.

LOVE"

— William S. Burroughs on his beloved cats, in his final journal entry.

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I know quotes can be found by Burroughs that say something very different about love than what I share.

I know countless examples can be found in his life that does not appear to be about love but instead the opposite.

Burroughs, again, was flawed and imperfect and was not afraid to be open about his failings.

We are all flawed and imperfect to different degrees. How many of us are openly honest about this aspect of our being?

Isn't it possible Burroughs openly sharing his dark side is an act of love that encourages us to do the same and exorcise the dark part of being with ourselves?

Here are two more quotes in love by Burroughs earlier in his life.

Other quotes in love by Burroughs.

"Love is a haunting melody that I have never mastered, and I fear I never will."

"There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve."

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I believe by the end of his life, Burroughs found within himself the love he searched for in part unconsciously his entire life.

I think at the end of his life, Burroughs found peace.

The final journal entry on love marks the completion of his life.

Burroughs was now ready to take the final life journey, departing through death onto the next great adventure.

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I apologize for the repetition in this post which was written quickly and I lacked time to edit properly.

I may be wrong about everything I have written above, but I think it contains some truth about Burroughs.

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David Penn Trinley Arndt 2022.